The Medici jury revealed its first selections this Thursday, September 21. There we find authors who have already been well noticed by the other major prize lists. This is the case, for example, of Kevin Lambert and Neige Sinno.

Kevin Lambert is a 30-year-old Canadian who sparked debates in France after using a Canadian-Haitian “sensitivity reader”. As for Neige Sinno, she stands out among the authors most appreciated by the juries of the fall awards. She is in the running for Goncourt, Femina, Décembre and Flore with Triste tigre, her powerful story about the incest she suffered.

This first selection includes 15 novels written in French, and 17 translated books, not all strictly speaking novels. Thus The Book of Daniel by the Belgian Chris de Stoop and Les Naufragés du Wager, by the American David Grann, are both stories resulting from journalistic investigations.

After a second selection scheduled for October 18, the Medici Prize must be awarded on November 9, two days after the Goncourt Prize.

First selection of French and Francophone novels:

– Dominique Barberis, “A way of loving” (Gallimard)

– Sarah Chiche, “The Alchemies” (Seuil)

– Ananda Devi, “The Day of the Chameleons” (Grasset)

– Négar Djavadi, “The Last Place” (Stock)

– Lionel Duroy, “My steps in their shadows” (Mialet-Barrault)

– Salma El Moumni, “Adieu Tanger” (Grasset)

– Kevin Lambert, “Let our joy remain” (Le Nouvel Attila)

– Eden Levin, Judi (Notables)

– Hugo Lindenberg, “The Imaginary Night” (Flammarion)

– Lisette Lombé, “Eunice” (Threshold)

– Richard Morgiève, “Mother’s Day” (Joëlle Losfeld)

– Éric Reinhardt, “Sarah, Susanne and the writer” (Gallimard)

– Snow Sinno, “Sad Tiger” (POL)

– Elisa Shua Dusapin, “The Old Fire” (Zoé)

– Antoine Wauters, “The shortest path” (Verdier)

First selection of foreign literature:

– Nina Allan, “Conquest” (Tristram, Great Britain)

– Tash Aw, “Foreigners on the Strike” (Fayard, Great Britain)

– Sebastian Barry, “In the good old days of God” (Joëlle Losfeld, Ireland)

– Hila Blum, “How to love your daughter” (Robert Laffont, Israel)

– Martina Clavadetscher, “Three soulmates” (Zoé, Switzerland)

– Chris De Stoop, “The Book of Daniel” (Globe, Belgium)

– Federico Falco, “The Plains” (Scribes, Spain)

– David Grann, “The Castaways of the Wager” (Basement, United States)

– Gouzel Iakhina, “Convoy for Samarkand” (Black on White, Russia)

– Lidia Jorge, “Mercy” (Métailié, Portugal)

– Han Kang, “Impossible Goodbyes” (Grasset, South Korea)

– E.L. Karhu, “To my brother” (La Peuplade, Finland)

– Laszlo Krasznahorkai, “Baron Weinckein is back” (Cambourakis, Hungary)

– Kim de l’Horizon, “Purple Beech” (Julliard, Germany)

– Iva Pezuashvili, “The Bunker of Tbilisi” (Emmanuelle Colas, Georgia)

– Robert Seethaler, «Le Café sans nom» (Sabine Wespieser, Austria)

– Peter Stamm, “The Archives of Feelings” (Christian Bourgois, Switzerland)